With FinovateEurope 2015 just around in the corner, it was nice to begin the week with news that a quartet of alums have been named to the Deloitte UK Technology Fast 50 for 2014.

The Deloitte UK Technology Fast 50 ranks the 50 fastest growing technology companies over the last five years based on revenue growth. David Halstead, Deloitte partner leading the Tech Fast 50, noted that software companies were "showing particular strength" this year, with the largest number of entries coming from this group.

"With so many fast-growing technology companies emerging over the last few years, to be ranked among the top 15 in the UK for four years running is a tremendous achievement. This can be credited to our fantastic team based in the UK and beyond . . . who are creating, launching, and maintaining market-leading services for our clients around the world every day."

"Being recognized in the Deloitte Fast 50 list is a great accolade in itself, but being listed for two years in a row is a tremendous achievement. It's a real testament to the hard work of our team, our continued growth as a company and the rising number of passionate and loyal customers who are using FreeAgent to manage their small business finances."

Financial services company providing technology and business solutions

HQ: Newcastle upon Tyne

Founded: March 2007

Growth rate: 837%

"The UK is facing a savings crisis where people are not saving the amount they need for a comfortable retirement. At True Potential we believe in making saving and investing simple and more accessible using cutting edge technology, so this recognition is particularly rewarding."

"Making the Technology Fast 50 for the second consecutive year is a significant accomplishment for us and another proud milestone in our journey. This year we were named in the Sunday Times Tech Track 100 for the first time, and we've also just heard that, once again, we've been accepted for FinovateEurope 2015 which is a premier platform for FinTech businesses like ours."

Speaking of FinovateEurope 2015, join Nostrum Group and 70 other fintech innovators for our upcoming conference in London on February 10 and 11. Click here to get your tickets and take advantage of special early bird pricing.

And for more information on the Deloitte UK Technology Fast 50, click here for an extensive info graphic that provides growth comparisons between the 2013 and 2014 winners, sector and regional breakdowns, and more.

The FinTech 50 awards highlight 50 European-based companies to watch over the coming year. The companies are selected by a panel of 15 fintech professionals. This year, 19 of the selected companies are Finovate alums.

Here are the Finovate alums selected, listed in alphabetical order:

AcceptEmail, for its electronic billing and payment system that allows customers to make payments straight from their email.

With 300 fintech innovators already taking advantage of Yodlee's 10-month old accelerator program, the company's sights are set on still more companies coming on board. In fact, Yodlee anticipates growth of more than 50% by the end of the year.

One of the key features of the program is free access to Yodlee's API, which brings with it the ability to draw from a wealth of financial data, from bank accounts to rewards campaigns. Program companies have taken this data and run with it, building everything from eWallets to new lending services.

Aside from its role in "paying it forward" (fintech edition), Yodlee has been a very successful outfit in its own right. The company has more than 40 million users and $100 million in capital, with 20% of its customers coming from outside the United States.

It's worth pointing out that Yodlee's accelerated startups include a handful of Finovate alumni such as EZBOB and FreeAgent (both companies fresh from appearances at FinovateEurope). Other alumni taking advantage of Yodlee's platform include Credit Karma, Xero, and LearnVest.

Success with the accelerator program, which was launched in May 2012, may be what has encouraged the company to launch its API incubator program to cater to a different subset of startups. So far, Yodlee has been able to incubate 10 companies, including Finovate alumn, Planwise.

Yodless was last on the Finovate stage in September 2012 as part of FinovateFall in New York. Watch a demo of Yodlee in action here, as they present their small business platform.

"We are extending the reach of our solution to make much more intelligent use of the data and information that is the life-pulse of a business. Our users will be able to gain insight into the health of their business in real-time, with FreeAgent automatically highlighting performance trends and potential problems in an easy to understand way.

Equally compelling is our capability to make this information available to banks and other lenders, giving them insights into the strength and financial well-being of their customers, with one eye on customer service and another on risk."

With just a few weeks to go before FinovateEurope, here's the third and final part of our Sneak Peek preview of the companies demoing in London (click here for part 1, here for part 2).

There still time to get your ticket and be a part of the conference in London on February 12 & 13 at Old Billingsgate Market Hall. For more information or to register, visit our FinovateEurope page here.

Each presenting company supplied a few teasers about the innovations they will be showcasing at the event.

In a unique demonstration, Akamai will command agents and attack servers across the Internet to launch attacks commonly directed at financial services sites (including SQL injection, slow HTTP post, and DDoS attacks) at a pair of live demonstration banking sites on the public Internet. One site in the clear, and one protected by Kona Site Defender.

The demonstration will show how these attacks can compromise an unprotected site, and how Kona Site Defender is able to detect and mitigate these attacks automatically, live, in real-time. The demonstration will feature innovative adaptive rate control and real-time Web security monitoring security technologies.

A lot is happening on the front-end of payments: Mobile POS, mobile wallets, NFC payments ... The back-end of payments, however, remains untouched. A card transaction is nothing more than a money transfer. Meanwhile, developers dread the prospect of having to develop native applications for each of these new, front-end payment platforms.

So why not an API that sits at the very heart of the transaction network, on top of the most widespread means of payment: the payment card? What if one could link applications to payment cards, essentially turning what's already in consumers' pockets into a loyalty card, a discount voucher or a means of sending them digital receipts?

Device Ident will showcase its new solution to prevent online fraud in real time. Our product identifies and evaluates any device interacting with our customers' online services, and analyzes history and behavior of the visiting device to prevent fraud and misuse for all our customers.

It is easily integrated into our customers' online services and it fully complies with European privacy laws.

Watch a fully automated model bank with an unparalleled level of self-service giving both customer and bank imminent insight and control in the process.

Through our Web-based, mid-office portal, Five Degrees offers the potential of enormous business benefits in terms of efficiency in adapting new business processes on the go. As today's market demands, our open services hub integrates with external services like KYC checks, Passport Validation, and PFM.

Come and view the fast and instant response for the next banking generation: rapid deployment, rich customer experience, instant and transparent insight for bank and client alike.

FreeAgent is the UK's market leader in SME cloud accounting software. The FreeAgent platform's capabilities extend far beyond traditional accounting software, and are developing toward performance and health measurement tools, providing vital information for both the businesses themselves and current or prospective lenders.

We will demonstrate how cloud accounting and the associated data creation, aggregation and interpretation functions can provide financial institutions with real-time insights into the underlying fundamentals and risk trends existing within a single business or across a base of clients.

GMC Inspire Dynamic Statement is an interactive and engaging way to present your customers' statements, online or offline.

Instead of the standard online statements, GMC Inspire can generate thousands of dynamic statements in minutes, presenting your customers' data through attractive charts and graphs that are fully clickable.

Areas that require attention and action can be highlighted and customers can even drill down to granular level detail, providing a fully intuitive service. GMC Inspire also allows you to track usage of every statement and use this data to populate relevant offers and marketing messages for every customer.

"To Buy or Not to Buy" is a white-label module for mobile banking applications that uses PFM functionality to empower and influence consumers at the point of sale or when considering buying something.

It allows users to check if they can afford what they are about to purchase or see how much closer to their savings goals they would be if they saved the money and used it to feed their goal instead.

One unique aspect of this innovation is allowing the users to leverage their social networks and direct messages to crowd-source the decision and instantly collect feedback before making the purchase. This fun and simple feature uses gamification to engage users and their network of friends.

PhotoPay provides the easiest and fastest way to pay paper and PDF bills using mobile devices.

Paying bills on a mobile phone is often difficult. Manual data entry is cumbersome and frustrating for smartphone users. PhotoPay has developed an advanced technology that significantly improves the mobile bill payment experience for both paper and electronic bills.

Banks and payment providers love PhotoPay because it can dramatically improve user experience and increase bill payments transactions. Our first bank customer has seen a 2,000% increase in mobile bill payments after implementing PhotoPay.